What your obligations are

We review all businesses using Electronic Verification of Rent (EVoR) to check you’re doing the right thing.

Your obligations for EVoR include:

• getting customer consent
• confirming identify
• making rent amount updates if you’ve collected consent
• staff access
• privacy
• security.

You’re responsible for making sure your business and staff meet all EVoR obligations.

Customer consent

You must get a customer’s consent and confirm their identity before you use EVoR to update rent amounts for them. Consent is voluntary, and they can withdraw at any time.

Customer consent is ongoing until the customer withdraws it or is no longer your customer.

You must meet all the following:

• have a current valid consent to use EVoR and update a customer’s rent amount
• renew customer consent at least once every 2 years to continue using EVoR on their behalf
• keep consent records for 2 years from the last time you provided accommodation to the person
• use the standard consent wording in the EVoR procedural guide for businesses in your customer consent record and renewal procedures.

Confirming identity

You must confirm the identity of a customer and their customer representative if they have one when getting consent for EVoR and before making a rent update using the service.

You must use reliable and secure methods to verify identification. You can find more information in the EVoR procedural guide.

Making rent updates

If you get consent from a customer to use EVoR, you must take all reasonable steps to ensure that the customer’s rent amount is updated each time there’s a change.

You must do both of the following:

• use EVoR to update the customer’s rent amount between 15 and 50 calendar days before the rent changes
• contact the EVoR Helpdesk if any technical issues arise during the rent update process.

You can’t make a rent amount update through EVoR outside this time.

If you can’t update the customer’s rent amount through EVoR, you must do both of the following:

• notify them within 10 business days
• tell them to update and verify their rent amount directly with us to maintain their eligibility for Rent Assistance.

Staff access

You must train new staff in all aspects of using EVoR before they access it.

It’s important staff only use their own logon ID and password. Don’t share logon IDs and passwords. We consider sharing to be a breach of your agreement.

In Business Hub, Authorised officers and Access Managers of your business are responsible for managing changes to your staff’s access, this includes any of the following:

• adding
• removing
• updating.

You must immediately remove access for any staff that no longer need access to EVoR.

Business changes

Tell us about changes to your business. These include changes to your:

• business structure or practices
• Australian Business Number or Australian Company Number
• business or trading name
• address details.

Privacy and security

You must comply with privacy and secrecy legislation for personal information, protected information, and confidential information.

You must tell us of any security incidents such as unauthorised disclosure.

Customer details must be stored in a locked cabinet or secure database. When requested by us, you’ll need to provide consent records.

This means you can’t:

• access any customer records without a business need
• use the customer’s CRN for any purpose other than for EVoR data exchange
• share customer information with any other party without consent from the customer
• access your own information or the information of people you know
• allow access to information to any unauthorised person.

More information

Find all your obligations in the EVoR policy and terms and EVoR procedural guide.